The Story of how the 27 books in NT came to be!

Have you ever wondered how the 27 books of the NT came to be in our Bible? Who selected these books? How were they selected? What were the criteria to be included in the list of NT as Scripture? When was it done? Who authorized it? These are all the questions that arise in your mind, isn’t it? Shall we go through the adventurous story of how this process happened over the ages? Come to my blog, let’s take up this journey now!

Before that we need to know what these 27 books are in the NT. Why don’t we group them under some categories, so that it is easy to remember? Four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John); one history book (Acts); 13 Paul’s letters (Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon); 1 anonymous letter (Hebrew); seven short letters (James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2, & 3 John, Jude) and the last one Revelation, the Apocalypse! See, isn’t that easy? Once we are through with this then we can move further.

The process by which a set of books got approved as books of the Bible is called Canonization. What is this funny sounding term? See, it comes from the word ‘canon,’ which depicts a scale or a ruler as we will use in our geometry classes. It measures things and sets a standard. The books that are accepted officially as sacred books of the Bible according to a standard are the ‘canonical’ books. Such ‘canonized’ books as per the standard measure is called ‘canonicity.’ It is the canonicity of the NT books that we are going to look into now. Is that clear my dear friend?

This process of selecting the books started very early in the history of Christianity. Did you know that the main Apostles, the direct disciples of Jesus, Peter and Paul were killed by 65 AD by Roman authorities? They were martyred, killed for worshiping Jesus Christ as God! Terrible, isn’t it? Well such things happen even today. Did you also know that John was the only disciple of Jesus to live until old age and die a natural death? Tradition has it that he ministered in Ephesus, Asia Minor and died at the age of 100 years! That is a long life, won’t you say!

Now, the letters written by Paul, some 10 of the major ones started to circulate as a collection of letters (Corpus Paulinum) by the 100 AD, and were circulated among the churches. This was called Apostolos (Greek). The book Hebrews was also bound up as one of his letters. Another collection of books containing the four gospels including the book of Acts were also making the round by that time. This was called evangelion (Greek).

The first person to write about these collections of books was Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. In must tell you something interesting about this Ignatius, who is one of the earliest Apostolic Fathers. The direct disciples of Jesus were called the Apostles and the next generation of church leaders were called the Apostolic (Church) Fathers. He was the Bishop of Antioch, Syria and was taken in chains accompanied by soldiers for trial and punishment to Rome for causing disturbance to peace! He was thrown to lions in the Circus Maximus now known as Collosseum in Rome, and was killed in 108 AD, becoming a martyr. But do you know what he did? On the way to Rome from Syria, he wrote at least 7 letters to the churches on his way! Groups of people accompanied him from town to town! They made him famous! He mentions the collection of the gospels and Paul’s letters in his writings.

Polycarp, a friend of Ignatius and the Bishop of Smyrna also mentions these collections in 115 AD. He mentions another collection called General Epistles, containing letters of Peter, James, John and Jude. So by this time the list of the books of the NT is emerging.

Clement of Rome, Bishop of Rome was also martyred in 99 AD; all the three, Ignatius, Polycarp and Clement quote from all the NT books, except Revelation, Philemon, 2^nd Peter, 2^nd and 3^rd John and Jude. These were the first church authorities to mention the books in the NT.

Now we have an interesting phenomenon happening; many spurious writings, in the name of apostles and the disciples start to appear and were circulating. The church authorities recognized the need to list out the authenticate books for worship, which could be used in the churches for the worship by the Christian people.

The first person to make such a list was Marcion in AD 144; unfortunately he was a heretic. He didn’t approve of OT as a scripture and approved only of Paul’s letters and gospel of Luke as genuine. He rejected everything else as having been corrupted by of Jewish influence. Well, expectedly the church of Rome threw him out but he still propagated his views from Asia Minor. Now the genuine church leaders felt the need to draw up the list of books urgently.

We have the first list in the Muratorian fragments from Rome, dated AD 180, which lists 22 of the 27 books of NT. It had four gospels, Acts, 13 Pauline letters, 1, 2 John and Jude, but omitted Hebrews. It included two apocryphal books too. Do you know what is meant by Apocryphal books? These were writings teaching different truths from that of the gospels and the letters of Paul and all written in the second century AD, after the death of the direct disciples and Apostles of Jesus Christ. So the church refused to accept them as inspired writings or use them in the church for meditation or for teaching.

Next come Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in Gaul in AD 180. He calls the four gospels as the pillars supporting the church; Acts was separated from Luke and accepted separately. He accepts 21 books, leaving out 2^nd Peter, 2^nd and 3^rd John, James, Jude, and Hebrew.

Such a process continues through Origen, Bishop of Alexandria (AD 185-254), Tertullian, Bishop of Carthage and Rome (AD 155-240), Eusebius, Jewish historian (AD 265-340), and up to Athanasius of Alexandria (AD 296-373), who in AD 367 lists out all the 27 books as we have in NT now and this list is ratified in the Synod of Carthage in AD 397. The churches all over the world gradually accepted this list and it became the approved list of 27 books of the NT, authorized to be used in the churches for public worship and teaching.

Wow, what a journey, spread over almost 300-400 years! Some of the church fathers had to fight the heretical and spurious writings that sprang up in the second and third centuries and safeguard the real and truthful teachings of the Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Do you think they succeeded? I would say they did! Or else we wouldn’t be having our Bible now! 

So what were the criteria for canonization? 1. It had to be authoritative – taught by the Apostles, the direct Disciples of Christ or their close associates like Mark (associate of Peter) and Luke (associate of Paul). After the death of the last Apostle, John, the church cordoned off all other writings. 2. It had to be inspired by the Holy Spirit and contain the truth as taught by Jesus, as recorded in the gospels or the early epistles (letters). 3. Be authentic, without twisting of the doctrines and truth. 4. It had to be dynamic, with ability to change the life of the person who reads them. Saints like Augustine, the Reformation fame Martin Luther, Methodist founder John Wesley - all witness to how the Scripture transformed their lives. God’s Word has power to change a person! 5. Finally the books used by the ancient church in their worship and service, well received by the congregations and church leaders, became included in the list.

Some books were disputed and were accepted quite late, why so? Hebrew was anonymous, so was removed. 2 Peter and Jude were almost like Apocrypha, so the church leaders were hesitant to include them. 2 & 3 John were short and personal letters, so were not included. James emphasized work and not faith as Paul did. So this was disputed until it was seen that both talked about different sides of the same coin! Revelation, because it was highly symbolic with dreams and visions, but was accepted later as its significance came to e realized.

Well my dear friends, have you got a clear picture of the whole scenario of how the 27 books came to be in our NT? Did you enjoy the journey? I am sure you did! Do let me have your views and comments.

God bless you and keep you.